Five Ghosts
by Calliatra
Summary: Gibbs sees ghosts. Written for the Ghost Story Challenge, and the Five Times Challenge at NFA.


**Five Ghosts**

_by Calliatra_

**Spoilers:** 1x19 "Dead Man Talking," 3x01/2 "Kill Ari," 3x23/4 "Hiatus," 5x18/9 "Judgment Day," 8x23 "Swan Song"

**Disclaimer:** All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Summary:** Gibbs sees ghosts. Written for the _Ghost Story Challenge_, and the _Five Times Challenge_ at NFA.

* * *

><p><strong>Kelly<strong>

He had nightmares all the time. Since the dreadful news had reached him, he had visions of his wife and daughter's gruesome killing every time he closed his eyes. So he wasn't surprised when the dreams started to bleed into his waking hours. It was normal, the shrink he'd been forced to see had said. It was normal to imagine seeing departed loved ones, it was a way of dealing with grief. He had wanted to growl at her that his wife and child hadn't _departed_, they'd been _murdered_. But he didn't want to give her any incentive to probe further. She didn't need to know that his sanity was hanging by a string. If that.

So it was normal to expect his wife's face whenever a flash of red hair caught his eye, normal to hear his daughter's voice in every child's laughter.

It was enough to drive any man to insanity.

When he saw Kelly's form quite distinctly, hovering next to him for a second before vanishing, he figured it was just the next step. Her clothes were torn and covered with blood, and it makes him think Franks might have been right when he said insisting on seeing the pictures was a bad idea. It wasn't how he would want to remember them. When Kelly became a regular fixture of his long, waking nights, spent in the basement because he couldn't bear the emptiness of the house, he figured it was no more than he deserved.

Still, the look on her face was almost more than he could bear. It was a look of sadness beyond words, the kind that, when she was alive, had had him doing everything in his power to drive it away and hopefully replace it with a smile. Now there was nothing he could do to make her smile ever again. He hadn't been there to save her.

With a single blow his life had become a never-ending nightmare.

* * *

><p><strong>Pacci<strong>

In the aftermath of a painful case, few things were surer than the fact that nighttime would find him in his basement, tirelessly working on his boat. Time had progressed into the small hours of the morning already, and Gibbs had just decided to switch to a finer-grained sandpaper when Pacci's form appeared suddenly and without warning in the corner of the basement. His jacket was closed, but the blood seeping through it left not doubt as to the gruesome wound Gibbs knew to be beneath. He stared for a moment and wondered vaguely about his sanity, before shrugging. He had passed a long night with no sleep and plenty of bourbon; that was reason enough to be seeing things.

"I needed your help," Pacci said.

Gibbs ran a tired hand over his face.

"Just this once. But you didn't have the time."

Intellectually, he knew it hadn't been his fault. He couldn't have known a cold case would turn deadly – even Pacci had had no idea there was any danger. Even if he had helped him, Pacci would probably still have been trailing Reed – Voss – alone, and been murdered. Probably, not _certainly_. No, no matter how well he tried to reason this away, it still felt like it was his fault. One more person he had failed.

"I'm sorry." His voice was raspy. Chris had been a friend.

"And I'm dead." With that, Pacci was gone, but the accusation was left ringing in the air.

* * *

><p><strong>Kate<strong>

Kate appeared when he was completely sober, but he just didn't have the mental resources to spare a thought to the fact that he was having hallucinations.

Except for the small, round bullet hole in the middle of her forehead, she might have been alive. "Why me, Gibbs?"

He had no answer to that. There was no answer. It shouldn't have been her.

"Wasn't stopping one bullet enough for you?"

More, so much more than enough. It should have been him.

"Why did I have to take two?"

"I- I don't know." It was all he could think, all he could say. It was the truth.

"You don't know? Come on, Gibbs, what's that famous gut tell you?"

That he asked too much of his team. That he pushed his people to the breaking point or even beyond while taking for granted that they would do anything he told them to. That they would die for him, yet were surprised when he showed the slightest amount of appreciation. That once again he had failed to protect someone who trusted him with her life.

"Why did I die instead of you?" The shout drove home what he knew to be the truth.

_Because I let it happen._

* * *

><p><strong>Jenny<strong>

He'd been expecting Jenny. By now he'd accepted the simple fact that he saw ghosts, and nothing seemed more natural than for her to appear in his basement almost the moment he got back from setting fire to her townhouse. He supposed he should have been worried about the fact that he was seeing things. Ducky would tell him that suppressed emotions always found a way to make themselves known, that this wasn't healthy. But Ducky talked to the dead, so why shouldn't the dead talk to him?

"You burned my house down," she said, incredulously. It was a statement at once so absurd and so in character that a disbelieving laugh escaped him despite himself. He noticed that her injuries weren't visible. As much as he hated Vance at the moment, this was one thing he probably had him to thank for.

"Had to," he said when she glared at him.

"Why? So there would be no trace of me left? So you can just move on, after I died to protect you?" Her voice rose in anger.

He had expected the attack, too. His ghosts weren't the peaceful kind. He was resigned to the fact that they tormented him, verbalizing accusations his mind already held against him. It was hard to argue with someone who was dead, harder still when their death was his fault. But then again, he and Jenny had always had spectacular fights while she was alive.

"No. Because of _Svetlana_. Dead for nine years, her file says."

"You're going to blame it all on me?" Everything about her conveyed her outrage. "On one mistake I made? I was practically still a probie back then! You knew I hadn't killed before, not like that!"

"I didn't write the orders! I trusted you to be a professional, to get the job done. Or to come to me if there was problem!"

"Come to you?" She laughed bitterly. "You've worked all your life to make yourself unapproachable! Nothing ever gets to you, and you expect everyone else to be the same! You reject human weakness."

"_You're_ the one who walled herself off from everyone! You and your damn pride! I tried to talk to you; you shut me out every time!"

"Who do you think I learned that from? Who taught me to keep secrets and to clean up my own mess? If you just let people talk to you, maybe I wouldn't have died in the desert alone!"

That hit home, hard. She had gone to _Mike_, after all. Nothing could have sent a clearer message that she had needed Gibbs, and he wasn't there. She had gone with the next best thing. He let out a hissing breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. One more death on his head. Would the list ever end?

"Would you have done things differently?"

She spoke coldly. "We'll never know, will we?"

And that, too, hit him like a punch to the gut.

"I was dying," she added, more softly.

"I know. Were you going to tell me?"

"Yes." She paused. "No. Maybe." She shrugged.

"I wouldn't have left you alone," he said, roughly.

"I know."

They said no more, but she didn't vanish, either.

* * *

><p><strong>Mike<strong>

"Better catch me up, Probie. I'm lost."

So was he. He was standing in the pouring rain, staring at the van that now held the body of his old boss, his mentor, his friend. At the same time, the same man was standing next to him, in better health than he had been before he died, demanding answers. It was to mourn someone who was standing right next to him, looking perfectly alive.

None of it made any sense. Not the case, not the killer, and least of all the fact that Mike's body was lying on an autopsy table.

"Tell me. Start at the beginning."

So he did.

He relived each detail of the past two days, re-examined them, and this time Mike was there, offering comments that were sometimes helpful and sometimes amusing and always so much like him that Gibbs couldn't help but chuckle. Hell, he was going to miss Mike.

When he neared the present again he braced himself for accusations, recriminations. _Can't you tell a gunshot from thunder, Probie? Who the hell trained you? _But none came. His thoughts went towards the carefully carved pieces of wood in his basement.

"_You do hear ghosts, Probie." It had been more of a statement than a question. _

"_Yeah. I see 'em, too." His old friend knew him too well, perhaps better than anyone else. He didn't have to explain anything, because Mike already knew. The two of them were too much alike, sometimes. _

"_I believe we make 'em. Not just with this." He had waved his gun. "With the memories we make."_

Mike was a good memory, and his death didn't change that. He had chosen his own way to go. Typical Mike, never letting anything be dictated to him.

The sight of his old mentor's cold, stiff body when he finally opened the horribly familiar black bag was still painful, but not agonizing. It had been Mike's time, and his friend had known that better than anyone. He ran his fingers along the familiar face one last time.

"Goodbye, Mike." But it wasn't, not really. He had a gut feeling that this was one ghost he wouldn't be rid of so easily.

_Damn straight, Probie!_

He was haunted, and he always would be. For the first time he considered that maybe it wasn't punishment, or even a bad thing.


End file.
